Cloak Games: Truth Chain

by Jonathan Moeller

  Which meant if I played my cards right, I could walk away from this with useful information.

  Looking back on it now, it seems so…hubristic. I didn’t know what kind of man I was dealing with. I knew I was like a mouse negotiating with a cat that could kill me any time it wanted, but I didn’t realize just how powerful that cat really was.

  “Fine,” I said at last. “Questions. I have a few of them for you.”

  “Ask,” said Arvalaeon.

  “Is there a way to cure frostfever?”

  “Frostfever is a resilient magical disease,” said Arvalaeon. “The frost giants engineered it as a weapon against us, and its sole weakness is that it is not as contagious at they wanted. If a victim survives the first seventy-two hours of the disease, he is no longer contagious. To my knowledge, there are only two ways to cure frostfever. The first is a healing spell of high complexity that must be cast upon the victim once a year for twenty years until the disease is at last defeated.”

  “And what is the second?” I said, since Morvilind was already doing the first.

  “A bloodcaster can filter it from the victim’s blood,” said Arvalaeon.

  “Okay,” I said. “What’s a bloodcaster?”

  “Bloodcasting is a particular kind of magical talent,” said Arvalaeon. “It is exceedingly rare, and I have only encountered a few Elves with the ability and no humans with it.”

  “But what does bloodcasting do?” I said.

  “It is a form of magic that grants precise control over the body, both one’s own body and those of others,” said Arvalaeon. “Bloodcasters can be great healers, or creators of virulent plagues. Or their power can be used for more trivial applications. If you wanted to be taller, or the shape of your body to be different, a bloodcaster could accomplish that. But to my knowledge, there are no living bloodcasters upon Earth, and only a few among the ranks of the Archons on Kalvarion.”

  Huh. Well, if I got out of this alive, I would have to keep an eye out for a bloodcaster. If I could find such a wizard, maybe I could get Russell cured without Morvilind’s help.

  “Then another question,” I said. “Morvilind took a vial of blood from my heart when he recruited me. With it, he can find me anywhere, and he can kill me anywhere. In fact, if he really is smarter than you and he figures out that I’m here, I’m probably going to drop dead in the middle of a sentence.”

  “That is true,” said Arvalaeon.

  Great.

  “So, is there any way to block that?” I said.

  “Not on this world,” said Arvalaeon. “The heart’s blood grants him a link to you anywhere on Earth. No known spell, ward, or magical defense can block it. The only defense of which I am aware would be for you to take shelter in the demesne of a lord of the Shadowlands. The lord of the demesne could decree that Morvilind’s spells would not be able to reach you, and since a lord of the Shadowlands is supreme in his demesne, you would be protected from Morvilind’s spells.”

  Yeah. That wasn’t going to happen. That was what Rosalyn Madero had done, and she was no longer even within shouting distance of sanity. It would be better to die than to live like that.

  “All right,” I said. “This task. What do you want me to do?”

  “That will become clear shortly,” said Arvalaeon.

  “I bet that is technically true but it still doesn’t answer my question,” I said.

  “No,” said Arvalaeon. “There is something else you want to ask first.”

  He was right.

  “This task,” I said. “If I do it for you, if I fulfill whatever stupid mission you have for me…are you going to let me go?”

  “Why do you ask?” said Arvalaeon.

  “Because if you aren’t, then I’m not going to do it,” I said. “If you’re going to kill me, then why should I bother doing your task, which will probably be painful and unpleasant? If you’re going to kill me anyway, then I’m just going to sit here and insult you until I irritate you enough to kill me. I’ve never gotten to insult an Elf to his face before, so I’ve been saving it up.”

  “Very well,” said Arvalaeon. “I am a Lord Inquisitor, and as a Lord Inquisitor may speak no lie, I shall say this as plainly as possible. If you succeed in the mission I set before you, I will let you go. My soldiers will not harm you or hinder you in any way, and neither will I arrange for any outside agency to kill you or hinder you. I shall keep the records and sample of blood I took from you, should I need to locate you at the future date, but I will not share those records with the rest of the Inquisition, Homeland Security, or the police force of any human nation-state. For that matter, I operate independently from the rest of the Inquisition, and there is no need for them to know that you exist. If you are successful, you may depart with my thanks, and you can return to your brother and his caretakers.”

  I frowned. “And you won’t tell Morvilind?”

  “No. You may tell him, if you wish,” said Arvalaeon. “I would not recommend it.”

  “Bad idea,” I said. “So…if I succeed, you’ll let me go, but you’ll hang on to my blood just in case you need find me again for something important?”

  “Yes,” said Arvalaeon.

  Great. Just great. That meant if I lived through this mess, unlikely as it seemed, I would come out of it with someone powerful having yet another hold over me. I was already at Morvilind’s beck and call. I still owed the Knight of Grayhold a favor, and Jacob Temple had a knack for getting me to do what he wanted without actually collecting on that favor. I could just imagine what Arvalaeon would want me to do in the future.

  Steal things, probably. That was what I was good at. It was most likely what he wanted me to do now.

  “I don’t really have much choice in the matter, do I?” I said.

  “You have a choice,” said Arvalaeon. “You may choose to cooperate, or you may not. You will suffer the consequences either way.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “you killing me if I refuse to cooperate really isn’t a free choice.”

  “There will be no need for me to kill you,” said Arvalaeon. He reached into his coat and glanced at his aetherometer again.

  “Your goons will do it for you,” I said.

  “No,” said Arvalaeon.

  I frowned. “What are these scary consequences if I refuse to cooperate?”

  “You will die,” said Arvalaeon. “Your brother will die. The Marneys will die.”

  I scowled. “Your soldiers will kill them?”

  “My soldiers will also die,” said Arvalaeon. “Everyone in Milwaukee will die. Every living human and Elf in Wisconsin and Minnesota will die, along with the populations of a dozen other US states and three or four Canadian provinces. About forty to fifty million humans and four or five million Elves, all told, will die in just under thirty days.”

  I stared at him, and this time I felt a chill that I had nothing to do with my fear or the temperature.

  If he couldn’t lie…

  “Yes,” murmured Arvalaeon. “You are almost there. Only two more questions, I think.”

  “Why me?” I said. “I mean, you obviously need me to do something, but…why me?”

  I didn’t expect his response.

  “Tell me about Baron Castomyr,” said Arvalaeon.

  I blinked. “Uh…well, he’s the Baron of La Crosse. Been there since the Conquest.”

  “Yes,” said Arvalaeon. “And in what circumstances did you encounter him?”

  “Morvilind sent me to steal something from him,” I said. Arvalaeon knew about my association with Armand Boccand, so likely he knew all about that mess already.

  “What did Lord Morvilind send you to steal?” said Arvalaeon.

  “A ritual tablet of the Dark Ones,” I said. “Look…I think Castomyr is working with the Rebels. When I was in Venomhold, the Rebels were talking about something he was going to do.”

  “Castomyr is not,” said Arvalaeon. “In fact, Castomyr hates the Rebels just slightly less than he hates the Hi
gh Queen.”

  I started at the Lord Inquisitor, pieces falling together in my head. Castomyr was plotting something. The Rebels knew about it and wanted to exploit it. Arvalaeon said that Rebels had a safe haven in Venomhold and were growing stronger. And if Arvalaeon said that forty million people were about to die…

  Something bad was about to happen. Something big. Something that would make the Archon attack in Milwaukee look like a walk in the park.

  “Look,” I said. “If you want me to help you, I’m going to need some pants. Or a shirt. Or, you know, both. But if I have to choose, a shirt would be nice.”

  Arvalaeon lifted his left arm. He had a watch on his wrist, and at first I thought it was a smaller aetherometer, then I realized it was a smartwatch. He tapped a command into the device and nodded to himself.

  “Very well,” he said. “We shall depart shortly.”

  Chapter 3: Truth and Lies

  “Well, goody,” I said. “Where are going?”

  Arvalaeon rose to his feet with a grunt and staggered a little before he caught his balance. For a moment, the lines in his face grew sharper, and I had a distinct feeling that he had been injured recently. He reached towards my face. I flinched away, or I would have had I not been shackled to a chair, and the fingers of his left hand felt very cold against my neck.

  There was a metallic click, and he sat back into his chair with a sigh. In his left hand, he held a slender, flat black chain, and I realized he had removed the feedback collar he had put on me in the parking lot. Tentatively I reached for magical power, and this time I could draw magic without any pain.

  Arvalaeon gestured with his right hand, and I heard another set of metallic clicks. The handcuffs holding my wrists and ankles to the chair shivered and fell open. I blinked and tugged my wrists free from the back of the metal chair, and reached down and pulled the other cuffs away from my ankles. I got to my feet and wobbled a little, my shoulders and back and hips aching from my confinement and the beating Captain Alan had given me.

  “We’ll have to get this over with before we can proceed,” said Arvalaeon.

  I blinked again, and I cast a spell.

  I threw every bit of power I could into the lightning globe spell and flung my hand towards him. My plan, such as it was, was to sucker-punch Arvalaeon, Mask myself as one of the soldiers, and then run like hell. He might be an archmage, but I didn’t think he had any wards up, and if I Masked myself as a soldier and got out of the warehouse, I could run for it.

  It was a stupid plan.

  For one thing, I didn’t have any transportation. For another, I was still stark naked, and I needed to get clothes from somewhere. But I was frightened enough and angry enough that the emotions took over and I acted.

  My lightning globe struck Arvalaeon in the chest, shattered into sparks…and then blue light flashed around him as a warding spell absorbed the power and reflected it back into me.

  That hurt.

  Burning pain exploded through me, and I would have screamed, but my jaw clamped shut. Every single strand of hair on my head stood up on end, and my limbs twitched and jerked. I lost my balance, whacked my head on the back of the chair, bounced my shoulder off the seat, and collapsed to the floor.

  It was a couple of minutes before I got myself under control.

  “That was impulsive,” said Arvalaeon, “but inevitable.”

  I looked up, tried to glare at him, and flinched instead. Captain Alan stood next to the Lord Inquisitor, his carbine in one hand and pointed at me, and a paper bag in the other. He had been watching me writhe around naked on the floor. Bastard had probably enjoyed it.

  “Captain,” said Arvalaeon.

  Alan put the paper bag on the chair and stepped back, taking his carbine in both hands as he aimed it at me.

  “Open it,” said Arvalaeon to me.

  I glared at him, but I pulled myself up, leaning a little on the chair to do it, and opened the bag.

  Once more I was surprised. My clothes, jacket, and shoes were in the bag.

  I’ve gotten dressed in a hurry many times in my life, but I swear I had never gotten dressed this fast, nor had I ever been so glad to put on clothes.

  “We shall depart at once,” said Arvalaeon as I finished tying my shoes. He started to rise, winced, and fell back into his folding chair.

  “My lord,” said Alan, and I was struck by the change in his demeanor. He had beaten me up without hesitation, but standing over Arvalaeon, he seemed like a loyal dog concerned about his master. “May I assist you?”

  “No,” said Arvalaeon. He tried to stand again, and this time he did so, though there was a flicker of discomfort on his face again. “Pain is to be endured. Captain, Nadia Moran, come.”

  He opened the door and stepped into the hallway. Alan took a long step to the right, so he was behind me and gestured with his weapon. Guess that meant I was supposed to walk in front of him. I really wanted to say something insulting or flip him the bird, but my head and neck and stomach still hurt from the beating. Even I can take a hint, so I walked after Arvalaeon.

  We returned to the main room where my pictures had been taken, and a surge of angry humiliation went through me at the memory. More soldiers had arrived while I had been locked away, and there were at least fifty of them in the room now, all of them armored and masked and armed to the teeth.

  “Captain,” said Arvalaeon, producing his aetherometer and glancing at it again. “Proceed with the operation. Four helicopters, I think, all of them configured for assault. Take whatever you need from the Homeland Security office.”

  “The idiots wouldn’t make proper use of it anyway, my lord,” said Alan with contempt. I guess the human soldiers of the Inquisition looked down on Homeland Security.

  “Likely not,” said Arvalaeon. “I should be ready in about sixty minutes if all goes well.”

  “We shall await your call, my lord,” said Alan. He bowed and shouted orders, and the troops opened a rolling door, sunlight spilling into the room, and filed outside.

  “So,” I said. “You’ve got your own private little army?”

  “Yes,” said Arvalaeon, putting away the aetherometer. “They are useful for doing things that I cannot.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “If you have them, why do you need me?”

  “To do different things that I cannot,” said Arvalaeon. “We shall start now. Follow me.”

  I shrugged and followed the archmage to a narrow door on the other side of the warehouse. We stepped outside, and I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the light. It was about one in the afternoon by now, though the sunlight was not as bright as a July day in Wisconsin should have been. The sky was heavy and overcast, and I thought a thunderstorm was on the way. Beyond the door stretched a small parking lot, and I saw the shore of Lake Michigan before me, lined with quays and warehouses, the quays stacked with shipping containers. We were indeed on Jones’ Island.

  An old car sat nearby, a Duluth Motors sedan painted an unappealing shade of green. Arvalaeon squinted at it for a moment, rummaged in his pocket, and turned to me. I flinched, but he only held out a car key.

  “Drive us,” he said.

  “Seriously?” I said, taking the key. “You went to all this trouble to use me as a chauffeur?”

  “I don’t drive,” said Arvalaeon, walking to the passenger side and opening the door. He lowered himself in with a wince, his left leg trembling as he did.

  I stared at him in confusion for a moment, then got into the car. “Why not?”

  “Because I was too old when I learned how,” said Arvalaeon, “and I can never remember how roundabouts work.”

  I stared at him some more, shrugged, and dropped into the driver’s seat. Whoever had used the car last had been a lot taller, so I took a moment to move it into position. Arvalaeon waited with perfect calm as I adjusted the mirrors, and then I pushed the key into the ignition and started the car. The engine wheezed to life.

  “So,” I said. “Where do you want
me to drive you? Hope it’s somewhere nearby. I mean, if we’re all going to die in another thirty days, we shouldn’t dawdle.”

  “Follow that street,” said Arvalaeon, pointing at the windshield. “There will be an onramp for I-494 there. Enter the northbound lanes, and then get onto I-94 westbound until we reach the exit for Bluemound Road in Brookfield. I shall give you further directions from there.”

  “Okay,” I said, and we pulled into traffic. I followed his directions and took the onramp to I-494. The freeway here was on a causeway, and to my right, I saw the broad expanse of Lake Michigan, gray and sullen and choppy in the cool, windy weather, and to my left the industrial areas of Milwaukee.

  It was surreal. I had driven on this freeway hundreds of times, and traffic went back and forth without any problems. On the surface, it seemed like a normal day…except for the Elven archmage and Lord Inquisitor setting next to me.

  Of course, my headache and the pain in my joints helped remind me of that.

  “It’s going to be about twenty minutes,” I said. “What do you want to talk about? The weather? I could put on music. Or you could ask me that question you kidnapped me to ask.”

  “Religion,” said Arvalaeon, staring out the windshield. “We are going to talk about religion.”

  “Uh,” I said. “Sure. Are you going to give me a pamphlet and talk about Jesus?”

  He smiled a little at that. “Do you believe in God?”

  I blinked a few times. This just kept getting weirder. “Um. Well. It’s…complicated.”

  “We have twenty minutes,” said Arvalaeon.

  “Fine,” I said. “Do I believe in God? I’d say…sort of? I mean, I’m not an atheist. Kind of stupid to be one after you’ve seen a Dark One. Except if I met God, I’d be angry with him.”

  “Why?” said Arvalaeon.

  “Because why did my parents die?” I said, getting angry despite the danger of the situation. “Why am I stuck with Morvilind? Why is my brother sick? Why do a lot of people die for no reason? Why did I just get beaten up and stripped by a bunch of thugs working for an asshole with weird silver fire in his veins?”